MATHILDE DENIS Just 7 Points Off Championship Lead Before Home Sand Race

February 11, 2026

• MATHILDE DENIS enters the final round of the 2025 FIM Sand Races World Cup just seven points behind defending champion AMANDINE VERSTAPPEN, with the decisive race happening at Le Touquet – practically in her backyard. The 2023 Moto Women title winner gets home advantage for this historic 50th edition, living just 70 kilometers down the coast in Calais, but she’s keeping expectations realistic while staying determined to give everything she’s got.
• Her path to sand racing excellence wasn’t typical – Denis started motocross at 12 with a Yamaha YZ85 despite zero family racing tradition, quickly racking up four national MX titles starting in 2014. She was climbing the WMX ladder and breaking into the top 15 by 2019, but Covid derailed her momentum. Rather than letting that setback define her career, she pivoted to European WMX in 2022 (finishing sixth with a podium) and discovered sand racing during that same period.
• Here’s the twist that makes Denis even more impressive: she doesn’t think sand is her best surface, yet she won everything in her 2022 debut season and claimed the 2023 Moto Women crown anyway. She trains just 30 minutes from France’s premier sand circuit at Loon-Plage, but success came from pure determination rather than natural affinity. In a sport she describes as “going to war” where riders battle for up to three hours and physical conditioning separates the field, Denis and her fellow women compete on completely equal terms with the men – and hold their own.

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